today my brother printer told me it was due a firmware update

thinking about it, it's possible your issue with the brother laser printer is a fiemware one - if a firmware update was corrupted it's likely the printer would not function at all, but if it needed one to keep up with windows and third party software that might just explain why it would print correctly from it's own app, but no one elses...

you should be able to check firmware status on it's control panel menu...